


Next Generation

by Go_Fic_Yourself



Category: Generation X, X-Men
Genre: Baking, Friendship, Gen, Hate, Jubes is growing up, Mutants are a metaphor for minorities, Protectiveness, generational differences, hate crime-property damage, surrogate parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-04-12
Packaged: 2019-04-21 20:03:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14292387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Go_Fic_Yourself/pseuds/Go_Fic_Yourself
Summary: Jubilee doesn't need a babysitter. Logan doesn't agree.





	Next Generation

Jubilee narrowed her eyes at the woman sitting across from her and struggled not to smile as she did her best impression of a wobbly old man voice. "Hello, Charles, my old frenemy." She moved a piece on the board between them.

"Ju-bilee." Ororo chided, the cadence of her voice like the tattoo of rain on a rooftop. "That is not appropriate." Her eyes were sparkling with laughter and her mouth was fighting off a smile. She made her move and nodded that it was Jubilee's turn.

Jubilee stared at the board with great solemnity. "This game is a thinly veiled metaphor for the unending struggle between us, Charles." She kept up her Mag's impression, exaggerating his speech patterns. 

Ororo finally cracked a tiny smile. "I hardly think that shoots and ladders carries the same nuances of chess, Jubilation." 

"Nope, totes does." She said, dropping the Mags impression. "The ladders symbolize progress towards our goal and the shoots are the backslides, like when the team splits up or people start listening to Senator Kelly again." 

Ororo's smile had gone broad at Jubilee's antics. "I think that chess may be slightly more complicated than forward and back." 

Jubilee shrugged, still smiling and finally moving her character to the finish line. "I don't see why. Life isn't, not when it comes down to it." She helped Ororo clean up the game and settled back into her squashy chair. "Do we have to play another? Because I really don't think this is what Logan meant when he said 'Keep and eye on her for me, 'Ro.'" Her Mags needed work, but her Logan impression was spot-fucking-on.

"Can we not simply spend time together?" Ororo asked, sounding like she had little hope Jubilee would believe that to be her motivation. 

"We can," she shrugged. "But four hours of board games is a little excessive. I'm not thirteen anymore." 

Ororo paused for a moment before looking around to make sure they were alone and saying, "I see I have been out maneuvered, Erik." in her best impression of the professor. 

Jubilee snorted, which turned into a giggle, which become a giddy laugh that had her clutching her stomach. "Ororo, you are the ultimate straight-man."

Ororo's mouth quirked wryly. "Sorry, neither." 

And that set Jubilee off again. When she was able to speak she wiped tears of laughter out of her eyes and managed to say, "Same, Storm." 

If Ororo was surprised she didn't show it. She only nodded. "Thank you for sharing that with me. I'm honored that you felt you could trust me with it." 

Jubilee waved it off. "It's not like that, no offense or anything. It's just not a big deal for me. I'm already a mutant and Asian, I guess I figured I'd better go big or go home. Minority hat trick." 

She looked at Jubilee, considering. Ororo could help but wonder if Jubilee had gotten her unapologetic sense of self from Logan, or if she'd always been that way and he just gave her the hockey knowledge. 

They sat in silence for a few minutes until Jubilee spoke. "You don't have to keep hanging out with me, I don't need a babysitter, whatever Logan thinks." She rolled her eyes. 

"He asked me to look after you, and that is what I intend to do." 

Another eye roll. "It's bad enough that he constantly fucks off, why's he gotta be such a douche-bagel about it?" Fuck Logan for leaving, for leaving her behind, for telling Ororo to watch her and for 'Roro for taking him literally. It's not that she doesn't like Ororo. She loves her like a mother and respects her more than anyone. She just can't help but resent being treated like a child. 

Ororo nodded her agreement with what Jubilee was saying, but that was Logan, it was how he was before he met them and likely how he always would be. She and Jubilee knew it better than most, that Logan is more set in his ways than some continents and all they could do is rely on time and drift to bring him back to them.

"Nevertheless, I made a promise and I plan to keep it."

"I don't think he meant for you to have eyes on me every minute. It's not like I'm going to put my finger in an outlet or something." That was a lie, Logan probably meant exactly that.

Ororo looked amused by the situation. "Perhaps had you not acted out before he left, he would not have seen fit to put you in my charge." 

Jubilee turned so her legs were slung over one arm of the chair and her head was resting on the other. "I did not act out." The look she got in response said that she was not believed. She briefly entertained the thought of looking around for an outlet, just to see what Ororo would do but settled for a dramatic sigh instead. She got her phone out to see if she had any messages.

"Surely I cannot be that bad of company." 

"It's not about company. It's about Logan thinking he as a right to decide if I need supervision when he goes off whenever he wants!" She jabbed angrily at the touch screen and closed her apps before cramming the device back into her pocket.

"I don't much like it when he does that either." Ororo's tone was more clipped than normal.

Jubilee was felt simultaneously guilty and proud, it was hard to get under Ororo’s skin, but apparently she had found a tender spot. 

“Sorry.” She mumbled but then after a pause she came back with, “If you hate it so much why don’t you ever say anything?” She didn’t get why everyone around here was so uptight with how they were feeling. 

Why there we're so many secrets in this house?

That was the hardest for her to understand. She’d watched over the years and seen how those secrets always found their way back into the light and ended up biting them in the ass. 

“I’m not his mother,” Ororo replied, an edge of defeat in her voice. It isn't as of she has never tried. She has, it just happens that Logan is the one force of nature she cannot control. 

Jubilee crossed her arms. “No, you’re not. But we are family. Not gonna lie, kind of sucks when one member is either pushing the others away or disappearing for weeks on end." She wriggled back into the chair some more. “It hurts people. It hurts you." She sighed again, this one honest and unexaggerated. "It fucking blows. It’s not like he doesn’t have stuff worth staying for.” She looks at Ororo, who is all kinds of perfect and more kinds of in love with him. "Men suck." She concludes.

"You will get no argument from me on that, Jubilation." 

Even as she giggled she scrunched her face at the use of her full name. 

"He will not change, so we must change our outlook." 

Jubilee raised an eyebrow. "The professor say that?" 

Ororo shook her head, "No, it was on the side of a Starbucks cup."

"Ah. Well, how can I argue with that? What should we do then, reader of the stars?" 

"We'll make snacks for the younger students, I'm they would love some after Scott is done with them.”

"What kind of snack?" She asked suspiciously, because that was a deciding factor in how much she would grumble between there and the kitchen.

"Fruit salad." 

The younger woman pulled a face. "Scott takes that orienteering course way too seriously.” Like he does with most things she thought to herself. "They deserve way more than fruit salad."

“I’ll be surprised the day he doesn’t take something seriously," she laughed, "what do you suggest then?" 

"Cookies." Jubilee said decisively. "They can have fruit salad with dinner. But I've taken that course. Those babies need some cookies." She said as if she was decades older than them, not a couple years. 

Ororo nodded. "As long as they get the fruit at some point. I believe Scott is on dinner tonight and the children will need something edible."

Jubilee snickered. Scott was beyond a terrible cook. Usually the team took turns adding things to the food when it was his turn to make dinner, hoping to make it even a little palatable. "I think that's fair. They deserve cookies and fresh fruit if they're stuck with a double dose of Summers." It wasn't that she didn't love Scott, he was just as much a part of her family as the rest of the team but that man had long since passed having a stick up his ass. Now it was something more along the lines of a redwood. "Besides, it can't hurt to sugar them up once in a while." 

Ororo looked at her like she highly doubted that, but she already knew she was going to go along with it. "Oatmeal cookies? With raisins?" She asked, less of a serious suggestion and more to see Jubilee's reaction. 

Jubilee pointed an accusing finger at Ororo. "That is the kind of blasphemy I'd expect from Scott, not you. Are you trying to give these kids trust issues?" 

The taller woman shook her head, pretending to be as scandalized as Jubilee had been by the suggestion. "I would never!" 

Even with that promise Jubilee picked up her pace towards the kitchen as though getting there first would put her in charge. It wouldn't, but she was determined to try anyway. She made it there a few steps ahead of Ororo and started getting supplies out of cupboards and drawers. As she popped up from a lower cupboard she happened to look out the window and wordlessly set the bowl she's been holding down to watch the flock of children wandering aimlessly around the grounds. They were looking down at their compasses with such an intensity that she saw two of them run into each other and one narrowly avoid a tree. 

Poor things. “Look at them, they need cookies.” She hoped Scott remembered to do a check to see if any of their powers messed with the compasses. She remembered walking in big looping circles, following the slowly shifting needle that could never quite decide which way was north. 

“They look so little.” She said, mostly to herself. She knew it hadn’t been that long since she was their age, but even when the team had treated her like a kid, she hadn’t really felt like one. 

Maybe it was natural stubbornness, or having been on her own before coming to the school or just that there weren’t many kids her age around when they first took her in. She was happy with the way they brought her up and wouldn’t change a thing, but she couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like to have a class full of kids her age. 

She probably would have gotten in a lot more trouble, if she was being really honest with herself. Not that she didn't manage quite a bit of trouble on her own these days. Ororo's words about Jubilee 'acting out' echoed in her head. She brought the bowl over to the kitchen island and stood across from Ororo. 

"I didn't act out. Or at least I didn't do it for attention..." She looked down at the recipe on the back of a bag of chocolate chips. "Mostly." She admitted with a sheepish smile.

Ororo said nothing but nodded in that regal way that said she was listening. 

"So the clinic, right? We do what we can to keep people from messing with us. We put it in a decent part of the city, we've got lots of cameras and we make sure to have at least one person with an offensive power and training on shift at all times. We get protesters, obvs, but they usually stay far enough away and don't harass the people coming in, not physically at least. I think they're afraid mutant is catching." She shook her head, half anger, half exhaustion. "But lately... Friends Of Humanity douchebags have been all over the neighborhood. They've been passing out pamphlets, offensive, completely made up shit. Like how being around mutants can cause cancer. They've blocked the door for people trying to come in and they've thrown rocks at windows and I mean, it sucks, but we're doing ok. Trying to keep upbeat, you know?" 

Ororo nodded. She suspected that Jubilee had a great deal to do with that. 

"So I'm walking to the subway the other night and I'm alone because honestly, out of all the staff I've got the most combat training. But as I'm walking I notice that a local bar has an anti-mutant flag up." She hunches in on herself a little at this point. 

"And I might'a lost my temper. A little. I got the owner outside and asked what they thought they were doing with that up there." She sighed. "Said it was freedom of speech. That it was his right. So as soon as he went back in I climbed the flag pole. I tore it down and lit it up...The owner called the cops on me before I even did anything. And because response time to the rest of the area is three times faster than it is to the clinic, they were there when I was climbing down." She looked at Ororo for signs of disapproval but her face was serene. "I coulda run. Should have, according to Logan. He's mostly mad I got caught." Her fists clenched of their own accord and she may have stomped her feet a little. "He's so stuck in the past! I mean, obvs, and I get why, but UGH!" Her footsteps echoed as she paced across the tile and back. "I'm not saying we need to go to war, we've had too much of that, but we need to stop waiting for the powers that be to give us our rights and protections, we need to demand them." 

Ororo listened carefully, taking in all of Jubilee's frustration, her anger and disappointment at a system, a nation, that hates her. "I understand your point of view, Jub-"

"No offense, Storm, but I don't think you do." She firmly cut her off.

Ororo's first instinct was to snap back, but she paused and breathed through it. "You're right. I don't understand. But I am listening to you and I believe that there are merits to your way. However," Jubilee rolled her eyes here. "I believe it carries considerable risk." 

"Is that you, or the professor talking?" 

"Both." She said with conviction.

She appreciated the honesty. Even if it didn't change anything. "It's just...the way we do things, trying to live under the radar, helping out where we can, it hasn't worked so far and it's never worked for any other group. We need to organize. A group in the city are planning a mutant pride march." She scuffed her feet against the floor. "I'm going to be there." 

Storm nodded her acknowledgement, considering the idea. Her first impulse was to tell her no, that it was dangerous, but Jubilation is a woman now, grown enough to know her own mind and as loathe as Ororo was to admit it, able to make her own decisions. "There will be students who will want to go...I will discuss it with the professor, see if we can make arrangements for the older children to attend." 

Jubilee's eyes lit up and she shot forward to wrap her arms around Storm in the tightest hug she could manage, which the taller woman returned just as enthusiastically. "I can keep an eye on a couple of them, keep 'em from getting into trouble." She offered, looking out the window again. Jono had joined Scott's class, apparently acting as backup. He helped a small cluster of students and then scrubbed at the unbandaged portion of his face in frustration when they ambled off before repeating the process with another. She gave a sigh and turned back to Ororo. "We shouldn't have to hide. Not even the folks that have visible mutations. Especially them." She brushed her hair out of her face and went back to adding ingredients to her bowl. "People like you and me...we could leave here, never use our powers again and live normal lives if we wanted while other mutants will never be safe off these grounds." She started mixing, perhaps a little too forcefully. "Maybe nothing will change. Maybe it'll all go to hell, but we've got to do more." 

Ororo's eyes softened. Jubilee truly had grown up and she allowed herself to wonder at that for a moment. The woman before her was strong, clever and bold. Ororo felt a swell of pride at the small part she had played in raising her. "There will come a time, fairly soon, I expect, where my generation will need to step back and allow yours to shape the future." She reached out and placed a hand on Jubilee's shoulder. "You will do amazing things and when the time comes I will cede my role to you gladly. All I ask is that until that time, you don't forget to live the life you are so determined to fight for." 

Something passed across Jubilee's eyes, an understanding, a flash of conviction. She gave a nod and a grin, leaning into Ororo's touch. "Promise. I'll do all that 'live, laugh, love' shit, and get into some trouble on the way." 

Ororo rolled her eyes, but her smile was genuine. "Of that I have no doubt, Jubilation."


End file.
